I’ve just acquired a new iMac running Mountain Lion OSX 10.8. This being my first Mac there’s a bit of a learning curve. Managed to get round the Safari browser not being able to work correctly with .rar files which is the format used on the Steinberg downloads for the full C7.0.2 installer.
Just wondered in any of you more seasoned Mac users have any advices for pitfalls I’m likely to run into as I’m trying to migrate software and projects from PC environment. I find the file system on the Mac a bit confusing at this point.
My first project import across the network from the PC retained the file structure I had on the PC but seemed to allow audio files to be placed outside of the audio folder in a default document file on the mac on the first save of the project. Not sure why, so I need to find out how to ensure the Mac will save the files to the C7 project audio folder on the Mac in that situation. I’m assuming newly created projects on the Mac will, when saving the C7 project, place the files in the correct folders.
I made the switch to mac 2 months ago, I got an imac also.
Believe me, your going to love it.
What I did was very long winded but I bought a cheap hard disk docking station from Ebay and transferred everything from my PC hard disk onto the Mac drive, one by one.
Making everything nice and tidy.
I haven’t had the issue you have mentioned.
It took a few days of casual sorting but finally I have a clean , no crap setup.
I then used the hard disk as a time machine for piece of mind.
I totally understand your confusion about the file system. I’m still getting there.
Just remember Mac doesn’t have a registry like windows. So there is no uninstall list for example.
That will take some time. Trying to find the Cubase VST folder for exmaple…Finder>Applications>Cubase >right click show package contents…
Just an example of how different it is.
One thing I have to say though thats very important.
Goto Finder>Applications> Right click Cubase>Get Info> now check that it’s not set to run in 32-bit mode.
I made the mistake of running Cubase in 32-bit mode and when it couldn’t handle my projects from a previous setup I spent £100 on more ram only to find I was an idiot!
I migrated over 3 years ago now and the grass is so much greener on the Mac side
Everything looks so much better and runs more smoothly. The main problem you’ll find is that PC users think you’re an idiot every time you try to explain that to them. PC losers! Ha ha.
Anyway, I’d seek out and install a bit of software to make your life easier:
BetterSnap Tool enables you to quickly snap windows to half a screen, or a quarter, or maximize in another display using key commands or dragging. It’s a bit like the default Windows 7/8 behaviour but more customizable.
UnRarX is a simple .rar decompression tool worth having. Stuffit Expander is good too.
Air Display is a great OSX plus iPad app that makes your iPad into a second monitor, if you have an iPad.
Path Finder is a much more advanced Finder replacement that enables you to do more with file copying or exploring than you get with the default (for example reverse alphabetical sorting, or copying to different drives simultaneously).
Name Mangler is a great utility for batch renaming files
YummyFTP is a great little FTP client
Carbon Copy Cloner is a great backup utility if you want something more advanced than the (excellent) Time Machine
Picture2icon is a great little utility for turning images into icon files, to create your own custom folder icons.
These are all my OSX must-haves that make it even better
If you are going to run Cubase 7 on your Mac you may want to review this post from Steinberg. Not every Mac has the issue but for those of us who did this fixed it.
Thanks to all for the pointers and suggestions, all useful.
Thanks Harrysound re the 32bit to 64bit switch pointer.
I believe the reason I had the problem with the wav files on my first project import not saving to the project folder was linked to the fact that I had directly imported the files and folders from the PC across the network. When opening the project cpr file it was still pointing at the original file locations on the PC. However as I understand it given the different files systems between PC (NTFS) and Mac (HFS?) it may have been Cubase running on the Mac could not write the wav files back to the PC drive and may therefore have simply defaulted to the music directory on the Mac. If anyone could confirm this it would be useful knowledge.
